A Scandal in Paris

Douglas Sirk, king of the ‘50s Hollywood melodrama, considered A Scandal in Paris one of his favorite works. In an impassioned 1998 essay for Film Comment, Tag Gallagher champions the film as an optimistic variation of the dark themes Sirk spun more famously in the nihilistic Written on the Wind. In the latter film, characters that society has deemed dissolute aim for redemption but end up being shot down. In A Scandal in Paris, George Sanders’s witty con man (who takes the name of François Eugène Vidocq from a gravestone) is allowed to choose the path of virtue, and because he’s made to understand the implications of his sullied purity (through his romantic interest in a wide-eyed young woman), he ends up succeeding. Having spent much of his adulthood inside prison, there’s really no place for the Vidocq to go but up. Following an escape and a string of crimes (most of them dealing with seducing unsuspecting women), Vidocq finds himself in a position of either pulling off the biggest scam of his career or putting an end to his criminal exploits. The notion of duality within every human and how their actions often differ from their private motivations (one of Sirk’s trademark motifs), is all but given a catchphrase when a priest exclaims, “Within all of us is a saint as well as a dragon.” Therese (Signe Hasso), the daughter of Paris’s police commissioner, takes this to heart and decides the only way to appeal to the dashing Vidocq is to tap the dragon within herself. In the film’s key scene, she attempts to make a romantic pass at him by offering to be his partner in crime. It is when Vidocq sees his notion of idealized purity about to plunge headlong into criminal activities that he makes the conscious choice to slay his own personal dragon (which coincides nicely with the killing of his partner in crime). It’s probably safe to say that the earnest A Scandal in Paris won’t ever approach the level of acceptance accorded to All That Heaven Allows and Imitation of Life in the world of postmodern cinephilia, but the finale isn’t without a smidgen of Sirkian irony. Even after Vidocq comes clean to the entire city of Paris and goes through the most extreme sort of redemption imaginable, Therese’s little sister tells to him that she always knew he was up to no good. “No man is a saint,” she taunts. Like a kid version of Lauren Bacall in Written on the Wind, the polite jab she throws hints at the way polite society never forgets (or fully forgives) a man’s ill past.

Image/Sound

Maybe it's just easier to take things for granted after stunning transfers of films much older than this (starting with some of the pristine finds in Kino's own The Movies Began box set), but Kino's transfer for A Scandal in Paris leaves a lot to be desired. It was seemingly stitched together from multiple prints, sometimes extremely bright (with hot, bleeding white levels), and occasionally slightly out of focus. Still, some scenes (like the one inside the shadowy nightclub) do look pretty great. Also, there are a few dirty reel splices preserved in all their frame-jumping glory. All in all, a patchy print. The sound mix is more predictably dated, with that vintage tinny hollowness. Luckily, most of the dialogue is completely audible.

Extras

Pretty stars on the menu screen.

Overall

Douglas Sirk's fascination with duplicity and enforced morality is rendered here with a light farcical touch and a plea for honesty. (Could this be his Make Way for Tomorrow?).

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